Next month as the GAB is replaced by two new entities.
Kennedy, who turned 64 in March, told WisPolitics.com today he decided last year he wanted to retire after 2016. He moved up his timeline after the GOP-led Legislature voted to replace the GAB with the new Elections and Ethics commissions.“Once the Legislature made the decision to restructure the agency, I didn’t see any reason why I’d want to be part of the new structure, and even if I did, it would have been a very short-term situation because of the timetable I had for myself was already in place,” Kennedy said.Kennedy has become a lightning rod for criticism Republicans have lobbed at the GAB over the past several years, including the agency’s involvement in John Doe probes. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, vowed at a WisPolitics.com luncheon in October 2014 that the GAB would not exist in its current format in two years and declared Kennedy “has to go.”
Kevin Kennedy is a class act and did an excellent job in his position. The politicization of election administration in Wisconsin by the state legislature in getting rid of the GAB is sad and unjustified.